Articles

Be a vegetarian by Swamiji His Holiness Sri Sri Selvam Siddhar- Dr Commander Selvam of Hindu Temple of Ohio

Have you ever heard the saying "you are what you eat" ? Well there’s never been a true saying. Your physical and mental health and well being is an exact result of what you put into your stomach. Food goes beyond just feeding our hunger, it feeds our mind, body and soul, and it is not enough to just eat to exist. We strive to achieve balance, happiness and bliss in our lives and food is a major factor in obtaining this state of consciousness.

So it’s time we started to take our health more seriously and become Vegetarian.
It is the wrong concept to think that if we do not eat flesh foods (meat, fish and poultry) that we are not getting a proper balanced diet and that we may become ill by leaving flesh foods out of our diet completely. On the contrary numerous researches and studies have shown that vegetarians live longer lives and are less prone to many diseases that meat eaters are more open to. Eating flesh foods significantly increases major chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, kidney disease and osteoporosis.

Flesh foods are loaded with contaminants such as hormones, herbicides and pesticides and antibiotics. As these toxins are all fat - soluble, they concentrate in the fatty flesh of animals which meat eaters are taking into their bodies.

We need to stop and think of the effects of eating meat has on our body and psychic. It increases the animal frequency in the body and brings more animal – like tendencies into operation such as vibrations of anger, lust, fear and murderous impulses. The energies in a flesh food diet adds to the impurities of the mind and the nervous system. It communicates the energy of destruction to the cells in our body and brings the energy of death into our auric fields reducing the flow of higher Prana into the body. The lives of the creatures we’ve eaten weigh down our astral body with negative feelings of fear and suffering at their time of death.

Furthermore, it is obvious that our natural instincts are non – carnivorous. Our teeth are perfect for grinding grains and vegetables and not for tearing apart animal flesh. The intestinal tract of humans is much longer than that of carnivores, raw meat is filled with bacteria and animals eating it must pass it through their intestines quickly, therefore because a humans intestines are longer the meat and all it’s bacteria is staying in the body longer then a carnivore’s. Our metabolism is not designed to break down and digest meat.

As vegetarians and humans we need to care more for our environment. Raising animals just to kill them for food is causing an incredible waste of our precious resources. We could feed millions of starving people throughout the world with the amount of money being ploughed into feeding live stock only to be later killed for feeding meat eaters.

Swami Ji says that is also a matter of the sensitivity of one’s heart, that if you have compassion in your heart then how you can kill an innocent animal just to feed your stomach. As humans we must raise awareness and compassion for animals as they too are God’s creation and have a right to live just like us humans. We are meant to act as caretakers and protectors of animals and the planet, not as exploiters and killers.

By choosing a vegetarian diet you can experience optimum health, and the happiness of living at peace with your friends in the animal kingdom.